Tag Archives: Dyeing

A sludgy little skirt

28/01/2012 3:02 am \ 46 Comments \

Hooo boy.  We are having an insane heatwave right now… been 37C or above for over a week now.  Australia Day was 42C, phew…  We all spent the entire day in bathers, in and out of the pool.  The fireworks teetered on being cancelled because of the fire risk, but luckily at the last minute some clouds rolled in, the temps dropped and we even got a few fat raindrops!  And then the fireworks competed with an amazing lightning display (pictured below)  Today is supposed to be another 42C-er, so I am in my bathers … again!
But unable to resist a smidge of sewing, as can be seen.  And dyeing.
I’ve made a skirt.  Now, it probably doesn’t look very exciting, but I know this will be a wardrobe staple that I will wear into the ground….  You see, part of building up a wardrobe that is well-suited to each individual woman, that you enjoy wearing and is versatile and comfortable, is recognising items of clothing that are indispensable for you and your own particular style.  For a while now I’ve been wanting to replace an item that I determined long ago is one of my own indispensables; a short straight sludgy coloured skirt.  I was pretty sad when my old khaki corduroy one finally died, it got all stretched out around the waist in an ill-fitting and ugly way, and for the last six months of its life I could only wear it with long shirts hanging out over the top, which was an utterly ridiculous state of affairs, so I finally said goodbye to it.  I tried to move on, do without it, but eventually conceded I really wanted another skirt just about exactly like that old one, and soon!
That skirt was thisclose to perfect, but of course a skirt does not qualify as actually perfect in my opinion unless it has pockets.  When I checked out the line drawing of the skirt in Vogue 1247; I was pretty excited … Little skirt; check!  Plain and basic; check!  Pockets; check AND check!!!!  These are all the features adding up to the perfect little skirt in my book…  and it also has a waistband, something I am currently into in my skirts…. WIN!
I made the skirt from purple stretchy denim, the leftovers from my plum jeans here.  The waistband is black corduroy, with its wrong non-fluffy side out, leftovers from these jeans, and instead of folding the waistband in half so it is self-faced as suggested in the pattern, I pieced the waistband in half horizontally with a lightweight cotton (shot cotton in Ice, also a leftover) to reduce bulk around the waist…  just a personal preference.  The pockets are lined with the same lightweight cotton.

The waistband is a contrasting black; for the following reason….  usually I add a bit of length to my pattern pieces, but I was working with scraps here and could only cut all my purple skirt pieces to their pattern-stipulated length… and this skirt is short!  Now, I like my skirts short it is true, but this one was going to be really short… even by my standards.   So I didn’t hem, but instead enclosed the lower raw edge of the skirt in the same black bias binding used for the HongKong finishes on all the other raw edges inside the skirt.   And cut a new black waistband, so as to have the colour of that black edge picked up somewhere else in the garment.
The HongKong seaming does constitute part of the pattern instructions and there is a pattern piece to aid you in constructing your binding.  I dutifully cut this out and make up the continuous bias binding as instructed.  However it was too skinny to work effectively on my thick denim fabric, so I ended up cutting a whole new new lot of 50% wider bias binding in black quilting cotton.  Which means I have 6.5m of skinny off-white bias binding now, to use in some other project  🙂

I dyed the finished skirt using 1/4 tsp of iDye in Brown.  I’m very happy with this final colour.  It is very satisfyingly muddy and richly sludge-y, wouldn’t you say?  I would describe it as eggplant, rather than either brown or purple.  A sort of deep n’ dirty purple, that reads as a strong chocolate brown on first sight, but still recognisably has that warm purple-y base underneath when you look at it more closely.
(at left: front, before dyeing, at right; the back after dyeing)

Inside the skirt: at left; the front, before dyeing, and see the pale blue waistband facing? and at right, the back view after dyeing the skirt… that 100% cotton waistband really picked up the brown dye beautifully compared to the denim, which having some synthetic elastane in it didn’t pick up the colour quite as vividly….

Details:
Skirt; Vogue 1247, purple stretch denim and black corduroy waistband; dyed with iDye in Brown
Top; top “a” from Unique Clothes Any Way You Like by Natsuno Hiraiwa, of white cotton, details here
Sandals; Micam by Joanne Mercer, from Hobbs shoes, details here

Pattern Description:
Short straight skirt with deep front pockets set in a horizontal seam.
Pattern Sizing:
6-12; I cut the size 10
Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you had finished  sewing it?
Yes, except that mine is 5cm longer because I did not hem, but finished the raw lower edge with black bias binding.
Were the instructions easy to follow?
Yes
What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?
I just love this skirt pattern; the slight A-line shape with a minimal flare, and the pockets most of all.  The smaller pattern pieces also enable you to make use of smaller leftover pieces of fabric, which is a big plus… 
I like the HongKong seaming in the skirt and the French seaming in the top; that the instructions are encouraging users to finish their garment to high standards.
The skirt is very short as it is, but that is the easiest thing to alter in a skirt pattern…
Fabric Used:
Medium-weight stretch denim, corduroy waistband, lightweight cotton for the waistband and pocket facings, quilting cotton for the bias binding.
Pattern alterations or any design changes you made:
I finished the lower raw edge with bias binding instead of hemming; this skirt is short!  In stead of the self-faced waistband, I pieced the waistband horizontally in two halves; the outer half is the fashion fabric and the facing half a thin lightweight cotton.  I thought this a better choice to face the thicker denim I chose for the skirt fabric.  Likewise the pockets are lined in lightweight cotton.
Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?
I will definitely sew this again sometime!  Probably lengthened… 🙂
 Conclusion:
A short straight fitted skirt, AND with deep pockets?  it doesn’t get much better than that!

For interest: the lightning vs. fireworks over Perth on Australia Day…

photo by Matt Titmanis; source
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Dip-dyed wrap “f”

02/08/2011 5:20 am \ 33 Comments \

While I had the dye-pot filled with blue dye, I took the opportunity to do another little dyeing experiment I’ve been dying to try out  (hehe, little play on words there, see, see?)
I made this wrap top “f” from the Japanese pattern book Unique Clothes Any Way You Like, by Natsuno Hiraiwa, using the piece of creamy coloured knit stuff leftover from after I had made this top.  This is a very very easy pattern btw, simply a flat asymmetrical half ellipse, with two armholes cut out in the middle.  I edged the armholes with bias strips of the same fabric as recommended, for strength and some extra stability in the armholes, but didn’t hem as this fabric doesn’t fray.  Also it is quite thick and substantial, and I thought a hem would have been too bulky and spoilt the smooth ripply effect of the fall of cloth.
Couldn’t be easier!

Now for the dyeing bit of it….
Now the most significant part of the dyeing phase is the first few seconds, when you first immerse your fabric.  That is why whenever I’ve read about people’s dyeing experiments on the internet and they pause to take a few photos of their fabric partway dunked into the dye bath, you just know they are going to end up with a blotchy dye job…  The best way to get an nice evenly distributed colour is to have your fabric thoroughly soaked through, and then dunk it in the dye bath firmly and decisively in one quick movement, then to swirl and whoosh it (technical terms there) around as thoroughly as possible for the first minute or so.  This is when the majority of the dye will take.  So, since I had dyed my skirt in this for the requisite thirty minutes already, I knew the dye wouldn’t have much oomph left in it (another highly technical term there).  But I was OK with a lighter blue outcome.  For a bit of a smudgy colour (yet more techno-jargon) I decided to add a bit of coffee to the colour mix.  No, not coffee-coloured dye, but some actual genuine coffee.  Although my husband doesn’t view this as real coffee at all, but let’s not get into that debate!… I added half a jar of this instant coffee to the dye bath, and away we went.

Fully soaked fabric,

into the dye bath.

I stood holding it half dunked in like this, slowly moving it further down into the pot over a few minutes time, and trying to separate and move the folds about, both as thoroughly as I dared and as gently as I could to get the fabric reasonably evenly immersed and not to allow any folded bits to stay stuck together.  Then I moved the whole shebang (‘nother technical term, hehe, I’m going all out today!) over to the table where I had set up this arrangement.  I took this photo later after everything was washed and cleaned up; I had other stuff to do and forgot to take a photo during, but this is just how it looked…)

After a good thirty minutes like this I rinsed it out and hung it flat as I could out on the line to air dry.
Now, obviously this dye pot with its small surface area presentation is not the ideal way to dip-dye, or this fabric has particularly good capillary qualities, because in the two areas where the fabric was bunched and folded in front of the armholes you can just see where the blue dye crept up up and up by itself separately from the brown coffee component while it was sitting half in the dye bath.  You might not be able to see it very well it is quite subtle… BUT it is there.
That, my friends, is known as capillary action, and is the basis of chromatography.  Little science lesson for you there… I used to work with different chromatography systems every day when I was an analytical chemist.  Ancient history now, hehe.  
So there it is.  I’m happy, and love the smudgy subtle colour I got here.  I’m extremely pleased with the graduation of colour from dark to light, it is way better than I could have hoped for!  The little bit of chromatography up in front of the armholes is slightly disappointing, but I can live with it as it is pretty unobtrusive, and is covered up with the folded collar when I’m wearing it.
(Later edit: I tossed the wrap in the washing machine, and the “chromatography” effect has disappeared!  My wrap is now just as I wanted! SCORE!!)

Details:
Wrap; “f” from Unique Clothes Any Way You Like by Natsuno Hiraiwa, cream coloured knit stuff, dip-dyed in iDye Poly in Blue and coffee
Top; Ezibuy
Skirt; skirt “d” from Unique Clothes Any Way You Like, but Natsuno Hiraiwa, details here, and to see this skirt styled in 6 different ways go here
Boots; Andrea and Joen, from Uggies in Dunsborough

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Blue-black basic

01/08/2011 7:00 am \ 21 Comments \

A new skirt… I’ve been casting a critical eye over some of my older skirts, and much as I still love them I can see some are sadly looking a wee bit on the shabby side.  So with the warmer weather just around the corner (thinking positively here) I’m looking to replace some of them.  I had a shortish length of charcoal fabric sitting in my fabric pile, leftover after Cassie had made herself a skirt.  Only about 65cm, and when I have leftovers of this measly size the standby option is often my old trusty faithful skirt pattern Vogue 7303.  So I made it up; lined with black acetate lining fabric, and hemmed with a bias strip of black cotton.  The inner raw edges are overlocked to finish.
But the colour was deeply uninspiring.  I hung it up in my wardrobe and it actually sat there for over a week with no desire on my part to wear it even once…  and really I do have a perfectly good little charcoal skirt already, and a newish black skirt too.  The fabric is a marle, woven in a drill-like weave similar to a denim, and had a distinct white fleck amongst the predominant charcoal grey, so I thought the white fleck-y parts of it would take up a strong coloured dye OK to give it a sheen of some colour.
So two days ago the brand new skirt was plunged recklessly into the murky depths of the dye-pot…
(before)

Do you like my dyeing stick; for stirring, poking and prodding?  I found it in the garden, and it has a perfectly placed twist in it to enable it to sit stably against the edge of the pot.  Pretty good, huh?
 I used iDye Poly in Blue and am pretty happy with this new deeply intense navy-blue colour.  The fabric doesn’t look like suiting any more, but now looks in close-up a bit like a soft woollen denim.  Quite interesting, and more inspiring than the rather predictable “before” skirt.  

Oh OK; I agree it’s still not a super exciting skirt but I think it will turn out to be a very useful little basic, as seemingly boring garments often are.
And it sure does feel gooooood to get rid of those leftovers from the stash!  In the past few months I’ve managed to use up several smaller amounts of fabric and gained useful garments in the process, so I’m feeling pretty virtuous right now.  Virtuous enough to offset just a little of the guilt from three new pieces of fabric recently added to my collection, anyway… hehehe.

Details:
Skirt; Vogue 7303 with modifications, charcoal marle fabric dyed with iDye Poly in Blue
Top; Veronika Maine
Cardigan and tights; Metalicus
Scarf; made by me with a jersey offcut, details here
Shoes; Django and Juliette, from Zomp shoes

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Horrible colour, begone

18/07/2011 7:30 am \ 22 Comments \

So, as I mentioned last post, colour…

Exhibit one; some grey synthetic knit stuff from the remnant bin.  Remnant bins are a terrible trap really, aren’t they?, the fabrics within can be so tempting pricewise, and the truth is they might not be very “you” at all.  So in a moment of madness I was swayed by this mottle-y grey fluffy stuff and brought it home, and eventually got around to making up a top and donned it, and it looked more than a bit awful.  No I wouldn’t even take a picture of myself to show here on the blog; I looked pale, and ill, and … awful.  The shape of the top was OK and I liked the monastic roughness of the fabric combined with the simplicity of the silhouette, it was just the colour that was the problem here…  So it was off to check out the dye section.  I was pretty sure the fibre composition here was mostly synthetic, so I bought iDye Poly for synthetics, in Yellow.

Et voila!

I was just hoping to just get a more yellow-y shade of grey out of this that would be more flattering to my complexion; but imagine my delight at this wonderful moss-y green that resulted!  Obviously the grey had far more blue in it than I realised, and I’m sure we all remember from our paint mixing days in art class at school that blue + yellow = green.  This is a prime (haha!) example right here…

Construction details; I drafted the top using one of my other Tshirts as a guide.  The fabric remnant I had was cut off at a funny angle, necessitating the curved lower front hem. I matched this curve on the other side of the front, but I left the back pieces straight for a contrasting hemline.  Initially I meant to curve the back hem too, but I think I like that contrast now.  Both lower hems are unfinished, and after more than a few washings that the garment received during the dyeing process, I can report the happily un-fray/ravel-abe nature of the raw edges of this knit.  However I did handstitch the sleeve hems in a rolled edge.  The neckline, well I tried to be sort of clever here, and apply a bias binding that would both enclose and stabilise the shoulder seams inside, and as well as finishing the back neckline.  This turned out to be a trickier exercise than I thought to achieve my desired effect, but I think I pulled it off.  The front neckline is rolled to the outside in a tight little roll, and hand-stitched down.  (these pictures taken before dyeing, obviously!)

Final summary; well to think I started out with fabric that was, let’s face it, a bad purchase since I wouldn’t have bought this fabric at full price off the roll, and then finally managed to get something that I am actually happy with; ultimately a successful project.  I’m still not in complete love with the fabric, it is a tad cheap and scratchy but the new colour is so wonderful, and was a far more perfect-for-me colour than I was hoping for.
On that note, does anybody know of a good source of pure wool knit fabrics…?

Details:
top; my own design, from (originally) grey synthetic knit stuff dyed using iDye Poly in Yellow
Jeans; Burda 7863 with some modifications, purple stretch denim, details here
Shoes; Francesco Morichetti, from Zomp shoes

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Some dyeing…

31/05/2011 10:51 am \ 15 Comments \

My dear friend C gave me a whole bunch of fabric last night, following a major clean-out of her late mother’s house.  Some of it is very nice, lots of it is… er, very green.  I am very grateful, however mindful of the fact that a person’s wardrobe can contain limited amounts of bright green.  
So this was today’s activities…

Dyeing the paler green was my main aim, and it got boiled for the requisite hour.  I love the dirty khaki brown it has become, and even though I originally envisioned a Pattern Magic 2 thing I am now leaning towards a skirt.  The two darker greens were tossed in the leftovers, just because I thought “why not?”.  They are less “St Patricks Day” now, and more “wine bottle”, so a bit better.  I might do them over again, with a fresh batch of dye.  Another reason they didn’t “take” as well is probably that they are mostly cotton.

At the same time, I noticed my T-shirt that I boiled in turmeric eighteen months ago had gone very pale.  Not enough salt?  So it enjoyed a re-spicing up.  Literally.  This time half a cup of salt went in, plus 2tsp turmeric.  We’ll see how the colour holds up this time…

And in case you are wondering, that top pot is only used for dyeing…. I have no intentions of poisoning my family’s soup!
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Bored…

25/11/2010 12:37 am \ 13 Comments \

Yah, so I must be bored with the same old same old blogger poses… though I’m probably not going to be attempting this one too frequently…  could be the collective subconscious of all those teenage souls inhabiting the general environs hereabouts affecting me…   I swear I have not been imbibing!!  
I really needed a helping hand to re-arrange those shorts once I’m up there; but my sole housemate Sienna just sat helpfully on the sidelines looking on in quietly loyal doggie support.  Probably wondering, what on earth is she up to now??  and can’t we just go for a walk along the beach??
Yes, my sweet.  We will go for a looooong walkies now, and brekkie when we get back…
Speaking of which; Mum brought me some new apples to try out, a new variety called Golden Lady, a cross between Golden Delicious and Pink Lady, I presume; and they are YUM!  I’ve been having them with plain yoghurt for breakfast, and am hoping they turn up in the markets at home … soon!  Thankyou so much Mum!

Details:
Shorts; Burda 7723 with minor modifications, refashioned from an old skirt here
Camisole; Country Road
Cardigan; bought secondhand and dyed yellow by me here, Country Road
Thongs (flipflops); Mountain Design

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To sleep, perchance to dream

11/10/2010 3:46 am \ 13 Comments \

With the change in the season, comes a need for change in all areas of apparel, including the mundane and practical such as sleepwear…
I did have a few highblown and fancy ideas for my summer jammies this year, but got real and decided to be practical… for over a year, this purple fabric has languished in my stash.  It wasn’t always this gare-ish colour.  In fact I bought it as a subtly beautiful white-on-white floral-embossed fabric.  About two years ago, hehe.  Was uninspired for a year or so.  Then had a brainwave, hopped over to the dye section of Spotlight one visit and purchased some vivid purple dye.  Had visions of a vivid deep deep purple blouse, with, I dunno, raspberry buttons, or something equally exciting.  Can you imagine?  This is when I was trying to colour up my wardrobe, my only excuse.  Plunged the fabric enthusiastically into the dye bath.  Even took a photo, of my “work of art in progress”, hehe.  As you can see, the differences the embossing made to the nature of the fabric surfaces made for a less than beautiful end result.  At the time I likened it to a sort of Willy Wonka-ish nightmare after a too-rich evening meal.  With a slight shudder, I stuffed the fabric quietly into the back of my fabric cupboard, and moved on, got on with life.  An important dye-ing lesson learned; TEST A SCRAP FIRST.

But a year later, I’m coming round, getting realistic about using up the stash.  The fabric is nice quality; fine and thin, not terribly crushable, is breathable.  I’m not as horrified by the print any more.  I figured this could work as pyjama bottoms.  I also had an old Tshirt that I was no longer wearing (I know, old Tshirts are so passe as sleepwear, but this was still in very good nick and still looks pretty good, just I’m not into it any more)
So voila.  The pyjama bottoms are drafted from an old nicely fitting pair that I had from years ago and have kept rolled up with my pattern collection for this very reason.  I added pockets, because I had some leftover after cutting out the main pieces, and so why not…  and some ribbon ties at knee level in case I want to bunch the pants up to knee level when the temperatures ramp up.  The waistband is enclosed elastic and the lime green ribbon tie at the front is purely decorative, I also sewed on a false fly and three non-functional lime green buttons on the fly.

Details:
Pyjama bottoms; drafted from old pair, purple dyed cotton mix
Pyjama top; Aztec Rose

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Birthday scarf

17/07/2010 3:05 am \ 5 Comments \

It was A’s birthday a week ago, my sister-in-law, and I’ve made her a loopy scarf for a present.  She has a lovely olive complexion and reddish and caramel highlights in her dark hair, so I’m thinking these warm strong colours will suit her beautifully.  I’ve held off putting the scarf up here because I think she reads this blog occasionally and I didn’t want to spoil the surprise of her pressie by her reading about it and seeing it here first! until I had a chance to go over to visit her…  I hope she likes it!
The pattern I used is the same as this scarf, using one ball of Colinette Fandango, a scrummy all-cotton yarn.

Details:
Scarf; knitted using one ball of Colinette Fandango
Top; Country Road
Cardigan; Country Road, found secondhand, originally oyster white and dyed
Jeans; Soon
Boots; Mina Martini, from Marie Claire shoes

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